52-54 Main Street

The property comprises a hall and cross wing, later adapted into three cottages and now forming two houses at 52-54 Main Street, Walton Upon Trent. Number 52 and the former number 50, now known as Dripping Pan Cottage, are 19th-century cottages incorporating remnants of a 16th or earlier timber-framed house. The front elevation is rendered and painted, with a slate roof. It has two storeys and two bays, with the entrance located on the right side of the first bay. A large ridge stack is centrally positioned, and the roof ridge is higher over the right bay. A 20th-century door is set within an inserted opening, and a window to the far left occupies a former doorway. Other windows have two and three lights and small panes within plastic frames. An inspection of the interior was not possible, but records from 1998 revealed substantial remains of a cruck truss and timber framing, including large panels in the rear wall and close studded timber framing with a mid rail in the west wall. The main room contains an inglenook fireplace with a brick oven, and a large spine beam is present. The east room has a later 17th-century fireplace inserted. Number 54, Cobweb Cottage, represents the left-hand cross wing of the original medieval house. It dates from the 15th or 16th century, featuring timber framing, a 17th-century inglenook fireplace with a brick chimney, mid to late 18th-century brick infill and repairs, and later 20th-century alterations and additions, all rendered. A stone plinth and padstones are visible. Light red brick in random bond with flared headers is used to highlight the date and initials 'RT' and '17..' flanking the ground and first floor windows of the south gable. This wall incorporates a ground and first-floor window with a segmental header arch, set within 20th-century wooden frames. A stone or Coadestone plaque bears carved initials 'RT'. A 20th-century repair to the gable wall involved packing vertical cracks at the corners to resemble timber corner posts. Detailed records from 1998 indicate remaining timber wall plates and bressumers, substantial remains of the timber-framed cross wall with posts, bressumer, studs, braces, and principal rafters. The inglenook fireplace’s bressumer beam has rush-light burn marks. The north and south rooms contain a massive ceiling beam with deep chamfers and wide joists with chisel-cut assembly marks; the joists are joined to the beam with unpegged barefaced soffit tenons, a medieval carpentry technique. This is interpreted as a storeyed cross wing of the earlier hall, now number 52. It may have been heated by a lateral stone chimney stack. The brick infill and casing date from the 18th century, likely coinciding with the division of the range between hall and cross wing. The building was subsequently extended as a row of single-room cottages with rear outshuts, possibly to accommodate servants at the nearby Hall, according to local tradition. The render dates from the 19th century, with some of it removed in the late 20th century.